Voice of the Earth and Space Science Community

Curiosity is finishing up at ‘Aberlady’ and ready to move on to our next drill target. We are preparing to drill a second hole in the clay bearing unit. Reaching this region, and drilling has been a goal since Curiosity landed over 6 years ago (Sol 2369-2371:This is why we came to Gale.) We were already successful drilling once, and now we will attempt to drill for a second time. Anytime we drill, we take a few sols to prepare. Tosol is considered drill sol 0.

Before we say goodbye to ‘Aberlady’ and move on, we will use MAHLI to image the drill cuttings from ‘Aberlady.’ After that the arm will retract and be stowed. To get to our next target, Curiosity needs to drive less than 1 meter to get into position. These short drives are called a ‘bump.’ After the bump, we will take Mastcam images, MARDI image, and turn DAN on active mode.

Written by Sarah Lamm, Planetary Geologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory